The present invention relates to a developing method for silver-halide color photographic light-sensitive materials (photographic films or the like), and particularly relates to a light-sensitive material processing method in which a plurality of color photographic light-sensitive materials of different photographic characteristics can be processed by one processing apparatus.
In processing of silver halide photographic light-sensitive materials, a developing agent in a developer is consumed by developing silver halide photographic light-sensitive materials, for example, in the developing treatment, or is tired by oxidation with the passage of time, while, at the same time, halogen ions are accumulated, so that the processing capacity is lowered. Measures are therefore generally taken to supply replenisher to maintain processing capacity.
When the replenisher are supplied to respective solutions so that the processing capacity is strengthened, however, overflow solutions are discharged in quantities nearly the same as the replenishment rates, becoming merely wastes. Reduction of wastes is therefore required.
With the advance of developing techniques, distributed photographic processing has progressed so that photographic processing is now often performed in mini-scale or micro-scale laboratories as well as in the more conventional large-scale laboratories. In mini-scale or micro-scale laboratories, difficulties in waste disposal often occur because of the unavailability, due to high costs and space considerations, of a plant for waste disposal using activated sludge, etc., and the difficulty of collecting wastes.
There is therefore a demand for a waste reducing technique as a substitute for waste disposal.
On the other hand, in specific fields of utilization, it is required to develop light-sensitive materials speedily after photographing. For example, in the cases of news photographs, photographs on a construction site, photographs for results in sports competitions or the like, as well as sight-seeing photographs, it is often required that photographing results be made available rapidly by speedily processing such photographs just after photographing.
Further, certain compensation may be required in developing a light-sensitive material after photographing in accordance with specific photographing conditions, the photographer's wishes, etc. For example, a light-sensitive material subjected to photographing in a high-contrast condition where it is exposed to the direct rays of the sun and a light-sensitive material subjected to photographing in a low-contrast contrast condition such as a cloudy weather condition are very different in terms of quantity of exposure. It is therefore preferable that a soft-tone light-sensitive material be used for high-contrast photographing conditions and a hard-tone light-sensitive material be used for low-contrast photographing conditions in order to obtain images uniform in results. Further, even in the case where identical light-sensitive materials are used for the aforementioned two conditions, there may be requested compensation so that, for example, images uniform in results are obtained by carrying out a softening or hardening process at the time of development.
Further, there are many cases where neither a compensation process nor speedy processing is specifically required, but only a standard process is carried out. Accordingly, it is required that the standard process be carried out in the above-mentioned mini-scale laboratories of photographic shops and the like.
It is, however, not advisable to provide processing apparatuses having the above-mentioned processing functions individually due to the high costs and large amount of installation space required. Further, if the number of treating tanks is increased simply to provide multiple functions in one processing apparatus, the size of the apparatus is increased.
An apparatus has been disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,699,869 which is adapted to process two types of light-sensitive materials different in sensitivity. The apparatus is, however, insufficient in the case where processes different in function, for example, a standard process and a speedy process, or a standard process and a low replenishment process, are to be carried out. That is, in the case where two kinds of processes different in function as described above are carried out in one processing apparatus, a replenishing system for one process cannot be used as a replenishing system for the other process directly. Accordingly, it is not easy to replenish processing solutions, so that it is difficult to obtain equal-quality images by the different processes.